I’ve been trying to remember what movie this is that we saw on TV sometime around 1996-7. I don’t have much to go on but the main character is the husband and father in a typical “movie” suburban family, and he has an institutionalized mentally disabled brother. At one point we learn that the family is only renting their house because he’s the only one there to take care of his brother. The brother looks a bit younger but, like the main character, is well into adulthood physically.
At one point, he goes to visit his brother, who greets him enthusiastically with “You came!”; at this point the brother seems highly functioning given the fact that he’s in an institution. They go offsite to a nearby ice cream parlor the brother gets a cone. When the scoop of ice cream accidently falls off his cone, the brother goes into a total screaming freak-out/tantrum, as he dives under the table to retrieve the ice cream and put his ice cream cone back together. You actually see him trying to shove the ice cream back into the cone, but it doesn’t work (I forget why). All in all it was a powerful scene.
As far as the cast is concerned, it seemed to me that the main character was familiar but he usually acted in comedies. Either he was Judge Reinhold or he looked a bit like him. His brother also looked very familiar; either he was played by Tim Kazurinsky or–again–someone who looked like him. However, I’ve never been able to find this film in the filmography of either actor.
Does anyone remember this film? It might have been made for TV or direct-to-video.
I don’t think that’s the one. In the film I saw the disabled brother couldn’t possibly have held down a regular job of any kind. I could be confused though as long a time as it’s been. The brother in the movie dressed and wore his hair a bit “nerdy” like some of Kazurinsky’s SNL characters, and that alone could be the reason I thought it was him. But he did have dark hair and glasses.
There’s a TV movie with an epic cast called The Boys Next Door that is almost certainly not it, even though Tony Goldwyn sort of looks like Judge Reinhold, and Robert Sean Leonard sort of looks like Tim Kazurinsky.
Okay, this was bugging me because after reading the OP I was sure I had seen this. I remembered the scene but I couldn’t recall which movie it was from. I tried a whole bunch of different searches and kept striking out until I finally found it.
At least, this is the scene I was thinking of. It’s a much more recent movie, though, from 2010. The story, however, is set in the 50s/60s. But it’s pretty much exactly the scene described in the OP so I’m pretty sure this is it.
It’s from the movie Flipped, directed by Rob Reiner. It’s a nice little coming-of-age movie and the young lead actress is very good. Aidan Quinn plays her father and the autistic uncle is played by that guy from Alias.
Tangent. Thanks for sharing. As father of a 14 year old on the spectrum, it didn’t feel right to me and my experience with both my daughter and all the other’s we’ve interacted with. Then again, as we say, “if you’ve met one person on the spectrum, you’ve met one person on the spectrum.” YMMV.
Maybe I can explain what bothers me. The uncle is very verbal, yet freaks with the ice cream. I’m also surprised the brother didn’t get the ice cream jammed into the cone so it won’t fall off like that since it’s obviously not the first time that was a trigger. And it’s also my personal experience that a new ice cream cone like that wouldn’t make “everything better.” Sure, it’s Rob Reiner, a Hollywood movie, and artistic license. Other parts, like joking the uncle didn’t like ice cream, felt 100% authentic.
FWIW, my daughter is no where as verbal as the Uncle. Her days of meltdowns are 99% behind us and it was primarily when she was non verbal *and *sleep deprived. After about age 8 when she could verbalize needs and wants (and had adequate sleep through chemicals), or give enough clues we could piece together the logic (and there was ALWAYS logic but we didn’t always connect the dots), the meltdowns largely disappeared.
China Guy, I probably should not have used the term ‘autistic’ to describe that character, and I don’t recall if his disability is ever given a name in the movie.
Tangent, I’m sure no offense was intended and certainly can assure you that none taken. I watched the clip with interest, and shared my personal reaction.
IMHO the character would likely be somewhere on the autism spectrum if diagnosed today. Only it seemed some of the behaviors were nailed and others not so much so. Again, it’s quite a spectrum and I just gave my personal take. Peace.
Likewise I don’t mean to offend anybody here, but I’ve noticed that more severe levels of autism are sometimes conflated with simple moderate to profound intellectual disability, or mental retardation as one would have said in the past. For instance, AFAI can tell DiCaprio’s character in Gilbert Grape has very significant ID and not autism. Yet in some reviews and synopses in popular media he has been said to be autistic.
Likewise, I have always thought Uncle Daniel, in the movie I asked about, was similarly afflicted and not autistic. Autism and ID are different things.